A sense of forebodeing...

The other day, I was feeling especially motivated, most likely due to the fact that i fell asleep on my couch at 8 the night before. I decided to rent a movie and make some yellow curry, my new brand of experimentation at the local Thai restaurant. First off, at the video store, i couldn't really find anything i was excited about seeing, so i ended up renting a cheesy looking sci-fi flick that Jesse told me later had some of the lowest ratings he's seen (more on this later).

At the grocery store, i couldn't find anything with a recipe for yellow curry on the back, but i did find a pad thai mix, so i settled. It called for coconut milk, i got the low-fat coconut milk, b/c i figured my hips couldn't take that kind of a beating. I forgot to buy 3 cups of my "favorite veggies". Remember that. also, i decided to forego the fish sauce and replace it with the straight up salt that the recipe suggested.



Moving on to the homestead, i fire up the stove and begin to cook. After i start defrosting the chicken, i realize that the package says the noodles are supposed to soak in warm water for 30-45 minutes. I stopped defrosting the chicken. The noodle package, in my humble ignorant American opinion, was a bit obscure in its cooking recommendations, as it directed me to cook the noodles until they were "tender, but firm". Its like going to a gym and when the personal trainer asks you what you want out of this, you say, "i'd like to look trim, but still kinda fat please".

Fast forward 30 minutes. Apparently my water was more on the 'hot' side than 'warm', for at this point my noodles were tender, but definitely not firm. "Oh well" i say to myself, "i love pad thai, so i should be able to look past a soggy noodle." So i start sautéing the chicken and veggies. You might be wondering right now where i got the veggies. After digging through a couple inches of frost and 4 containers of ice cream with the gooey syrupy crap in the bottom, i managed to excavate a bag of stir fry veggies that i vaguely remember using about 8 months ago. They had since formed into a freezer-burned buffet of slightly shriveled vegetables, convienently held together in one solid chunk of ice. "what luck!" i exclaim silently. As i add everything into the pan that i just purchased (for 50% off!) i begin to realize that i've made far too much pad thai for even the most ambitious of single men to consume by themselves, so i gave tim a call to see if he and sara would want to come over and help me finish it. He didn't answer the phone, so i decided to partake of this delectable feast by myself.

Fast forward 5 minutes. For the third time in this single plate of "Pad Thai" (and yes, i use the quotes sarcastically), i find myself fighting off my gag reflex, wondering what went wrong. Low fat coconut milk? Lack of fish sauce? Freeze dried veggies? Overcooked noodles? Looking back, i realize now that i should've just turned away at the veggies, cut my losses and make some mac and cheese.

So as i struggle to keep this "food" down while scraping it into the garbage, i'm silently thankful that tim didn't answer his phone. The last time i officially invited them over for supper, i concocted a splendid combination of Ramen, ginger, green onion, garlic (sautéed in olive oil), and eggs. I was impressed with myself, and i could tell that they were as well, mainly from Sara's first reaction when she declared, "this looks terrible". Obviously i had a reputation to uphold.


Anyway, not to be denied my culinary achievement of excellence for the night, i had also purchased a gingerbread cake mix and was planning on making gingerbread cookies. This actually went quite smoothly. The box said i should've ended up with about 2 1/2 dozen cookies. I ended the night with 21, which isn't too bad considering the fact that no one was present to keep the cook accountable in the area of 'snitching', and that said cook hadn't exactly 'filled up' at dinner.

I moved into the living room to enjoy a vanilla cream and some more cookies. As i began to que the movie, i paused. In my mind, i envision my evening on a teeter totter of good and bad, with the morbidly obese pad thai preparing to launch the feather-weight victory of successful gingerbread cookies into the stratosphere. Could this movie balance the night? Could it turn the tide from a night of mediocrity to an enjoyable, nay, exquisite evening?

Short answer, no.

It turns out Jesse's reaction was pretty accurate. 'you saw the reviews for that, right?' No Jesse, i didn't. I find it necessary to bring you excerpts of my favorite review quotes:

-Crank your brain to its lowest possible idle and you'll still overthink Ultraviolet.

-Ultrastupid, ultra-incoherent, ultrasilly -- and way, way ultraboring

-Her sword is red, her eyes are blue, and her movie is horrible.

And my favorite:

-Ultraviolet will be studied with great interest in the future - not for its quality or its artistic merit, but rather to discover how a turd like this was made.

A couple of them brought up the term 'turd' and 'excrement'. It appeared to be a pretty common theme. After experiencing the movie myself (you don't 'watch' a movie like this) i can't say that i'm terribly surprised.

So, as my mind watches my gingerbread compatriot catapulted over the newly formed blob of Ultra-thai, i realize that even though my house smells awful, even though i'm still not quite full, and even though my IQ has dropped a full 16 points in the last 94 minutes, i've had quite an experience. If i couldn't laugh at it, i'd probably denounce sci-fi-thai nights. Thank goodness that didn't happen.

Sometimes i wish i was from Texas. Then i see this.

Let me start out by saying that the hick-tastic picture above is a copyrighted image of the Texas Bigfoot Research Center. For all i know, posting it here could be illegal, so if i get some kind of an offical condemnation or rebuke or figurative whoopin', i'll gladly remove it and replace it with some of my own artwork. Again, not my property. Be very very careful with downloading and distributing this image. I've seen these guys on the learning channel, and in complete seriousness, this is the most dedicated, disciplined, and well camouflaged group of middle aged, slightly overweight, mustache-weilding men and women you are likely to come across. On with the learning.

As stated before, i was first exposed to the Texas Bigfoot Reasearch Center (TBRC) last weekend while watching The Learning Channel (TLC), during a brief visit to Seattle, Washington (WA). Naturally the sight of some of the shirt-sleeve-challenged members of this great country patroling the Texas wilderness with cameras and night vision goggles inspired some cyber-investegation.

All obvious questions aside (where the crap did these guys get night vision goggles?), i decided to check out the website. These are real accounts, real people, and a very real nightmare. All quotes are taken directly from the reports verbatim.

Palestine, Texas. 1998. As the witness was on his way to go fishing, nature called. The witness "pulled over before (he) got to the lake to urinate." As he "began to take care of business", he heard something rustling in the woods that was "too heavy to be a dog". Later, he would describe to the professionally dispatched TBRC investegator that the specimen appeared to be "wide and thick."

Obviously this is a reliable account, as evidenced by the word 'urniate' (thats 'pee' for the layman). An ordinary man would use ordinary language, but here the witness deftly navigates the english language with the ease of a seasoned scholar. It is also apparent that the witness has omitted a certain amount of unecessary detail to avoid confusing the public, or leading the investegator down a cold trail. I think its safe to say the next time you see or hear anything that is "wide and thick" and or "too heavy to be a dog", record your surroundings and submit it to TBRC. You've just become the latest eyewitness to Bigfoot, and have become the envy of millions of NASCAR fans across the country.

Anyway, thats one small excerpt. These don't need any extra commentary to be funny. If and when you decide to embark on your own investegation, you may come across terms like 'skunk-ape', 'wooley booger', or 'Big Cypress Swamp Monster'. Don't be misled. This is Bigfoot, our reclusive relative, our hirsute hedge-dweller, our bearded brother. He deserves respect, honor, and probably some more flattering accounts of his presence. Be careful out there.